1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a fishing reel, particularly to a fishing reel attached to a fishing rod for winding and releasing a fishing line.
2. Background Art
The fishing reels generally include a reel unit, a spool rotatably attached to the reel unit, and a handle for rotating the spool. The spool is attached onto a spool shaft supported by the reel unit, whereas the handle is fixedly attached onto a handle shaft while being disposed in parallel to the spool shaft. Japanese Laid-open Patent Application Publication No. JP-A-2005-270017 describes one of the well-known fishing reels of the aforementioned type. The fishing reel of the publication further includes, for instance, a star drag, a drag mechanism, and a torque sensor. The start drag is attached onto the handle shaft. The drag mechanism, such as a lever drag, is attached onto the spool shaft for braking rotation of the spool. The torque sensor detects torque applied on the drag mechanism. Tension applied on the fishing reel can be herein calculated using tension applied on the drag mechanism (i.e., the tension detected by the torque sensor). Therefore, an angler can reliably grasp tension applied on the fishing line, which is a current fishing condition in real time including information regarding whether or not a fish bites, a pulling level of a fish and the like, by displaying the tension applied on the fishing line on a display unit of a fishing information display device or a display unit of a counter case disposed on the top of the reel unit, for instance.
According to the well-known fishing reels, the tension on the fishing line is detected by the torque sensor provided for detecting the toque applied on the drag mechanism. In general, the drag mechanism is configured to brake rotation of the spool by contact friction when a plurality of drag plates is abutted to the spool. However, the drag plates are heated due to increase in contact friction thereof in some cases, for instance, when a fish pulls the fishing line quite strongly during activation of the drag mechanism. When the drag mechanism is thus heated, the torque sensor disposed in the vicinity of the dram mechanism increases its temperature. Accordingly, the torque sensor can detect torque imprecisely. Such an imprecisely detected torque value results in a large difference between an actual tension value and a calculated tension value calculated based on the detected toque value. In other words, there are high chances that an angler cannot precisely grasp the tension applied on the fishing line.
In view of the above, the present invention addresses a need to produce a fishing reel for allowing an angler to precisely grasp the tension applied on the fishing line.